Naysayers had predicted a disastrous year for Amsterdam’s blockbuster art scene which, when all’s said and done, revolves around one postcode, that of the city’s Museum Square. Yes, the fabled Rijksmuseum remains on lockdown ahead of its reopening in 2013, and the Van Gogh Museum will indeed close at the end of September for an unspecified period in order to check various health and safety boxes, but Amsterdam’s modern art institution, the Stedelijk Museum (home to works by everyone from Barbara Kruger to Karel Appel) bucked the general creative malaise by inviting a throng of journalists—including yours truly—to explore its newly pimped premises yesterday. Architect Mels Crouwel, whose firm Benthem Crouwel won the contract to re-house the Stedelijk in a bathtub-inspired extension back in September 2004, explained that the institution "is a big change for the city; the main building—which was built in 1895—has always had its back to the Square. Now we’re facing forward into the Museum Square and that’s exactly how the contemporary arts scene needs to present itself." The new building opens September 23, but here's an early tour: